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Betsy's Backyard Blog

Betsy Freese is an Executive Editor for Meredith Agrimedia, including Living the Country Life and Successful Farming. She grew up on a fruit farm in Maryland (see www.strawberryfarm.com) and has an agricultural journalism degree from Iowa State University. She and her husband, Bob, a veterinarian, live on a farm in Iowa where they raise sheep, hay, corn, and soybeans.

I've been thinking about 4-H, as two people from my 4-H years died last week.

Edith Kilby was my 4-H leader in Calvert, Maryland. She encouraged me to enter demonstration and speech contests and required all members to keep detailed record books. The photo below shows Mrs. Kilby on the right and Mom on the left after I was crowned the county fair queen.

Mrs. Kilby was a dairy farmer, a teacher, a writer, an artist and much more. She lived to be 97. You can read more about her wonderful life here.

Sadly, a 4-H friend died last week. Ned Sayre was only 53. He owned Waffle Hill Farm in Churchville, Maryland. The newspaper clipping below shows Ned, my friend Tona, and me at the old Esskay pork slaughtering plant in Baltimore. We were learning how sausages were made (you don't want to know). I can still smell that scrapple room.

Ned was always blasting music from a boom box in his cattle show pen at the Maryland State Fair. I asked him about one song, Rosalita. "You don't know who Bruce Springsteen is?" he exclaimed. He was shocked. I went home, bought two albums, and got hooked on the Boss. Thank you, Ned. You can read more about Ned's life here.

Bob finally got a smart phone, chucking his ancient flip phone that couldn't text or take pictures. Now he's documenting in photos every client call and move I make around the acreage. Good grief.

Thank goodness he's not on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any social media.

"What I do with these photos?" he asked the other night. So I downloaded them for my blog. I'm actually excited about seeing what he'll come up with this year. A veterinarian sees some interesting things. I will have to cull the gross for you, dear readers. Here's a start.

This outstanding Hereford came to the vet clinic for papers and tests before a big cattle show.

This hen didn't mind the snow. Bob says she was playing tic-tac-toe in the fence shadows.

I met Donald Trump at a land meeting in Des Moines. He was hinting about running for office while promoting The Apprentice and telling Mitt Romney: You're Fired! Peoples Company, the meeting sponsor, gave Trump an acre of Iowa farmland. What should he plant?

Iowa farmer Chris Soules, The Bachelor on ABC, visited our office Feb 3 to talk about farming. He didn't spill the (soy) beans about his choice for wife.

I ran into The Bachelor last week at a land expo in Des Moines. Chris Soules, a farmer from Arlington, Iowa, is on the popular ABC show (Monday nights). I'm giving the show a try just because this guy is a real farmer (and really handsome). Honestly, the show makes me cringe. Last week the girls were chasing pigs and milking a goat. Chris says this isn't something they do on his farm. Hollywood.

I hope he finds a wife. If not, I have nieces who can drive a tractor.

Bob and I were back on the home farm in Maryland last week to celebrate Dad's birthday and help a little here and there. For his birthday, Dad wanted us all to attend the Cecil County Soil Conservation annual banquet. It was a yummy dinner of crab cakes and prime rib, enjoyed by a sold-out crowd of 250 farmers and agribusiness people.

The best part of the evening was the showcase of conservation projects completed and underway on farms in the county. Maryland farmers are under a microscope to keep water clean for the Chesapeake Bay. Dad has been using terraces, cover crops, and no-till on his fruit farm for decades. He was honored as the county conservation farmer in 1983. It's been his life-long passion to farm responsibly, respecting soil and water.

Iowa, where I live now, is starting to deal with water quality issues as tile lines run black topsoil to the river. Many farmers and farm groups are on the defensive, but others are embracing cover crops and more. Let's keep it going.

A winter storm blew in yesterday, typical for January in Iowa. Tonight it will drop to 11 below zero, says the weather service. Ugh.

I took this photo looking south from my library. I planted the amaryllis bulb from Longfield on November 17 and it is finally shooting up.

Here are tips on forcing amaryllis bulbs:
1. Fill the container ¾ full with potting soil.
2. Place the bulb in the potting soil and cover with potting soil. Make sure to leave the tip of the bulb exposed. For amaryllis, there should be one bulb for a 6-inch pot. Cover with decorative moss (optional).
3. Water so that the soil is moist. Do not over-water. Place container in a sunny location in your home.

When growing bulbs indoors, choose a location that receives proper sun requirements. For example, full sun is 6 hours of filtered sunlight per day. Avoid cold drafts or hot, forced air near radiators or heaters.

On the Facebook page for Living the Country Life, I posted a photo of lilacs from my backyard last May and posed the question: "Should we just skip ahead to spring?" So far, the 1,600 comments were leaning yes, although some readers enjoy winter. What is certain -- you love lilacs. More than 23,000 people liked the photo.

I adopted two feral kittens from the rescue center three months ago. They are still pretty wild, but we love them anyway. The male, Mickie, is the friendliest and races around the house non-stop. The female, Mia, is shy.

They are so thrilled to have a Christmas tree in the house. I decorated it with non-breakable ornaments, knowing the cats would immediately climb the tree (they did).

Every evening I get home from work to find ornaments scattered around the house, even down in the basement. Have fun, kids.

Lovely Mia.

Mickie and Mia love to harass my house plants.

The Christmas tree right after decoration and before kitten infestation.

Do you send Christmas cards? I still mail a few dozen each year. This year I selected two of my favorite scenes from our small farm. The first shows Warren and Caroline stacking hay while Bob drives the old tractor. Our pond is in the background. In the second, our ewes are enjoying a winter snow. I say enjoying, because the barn was open and bedded for their shelter. They chose to sit outside. Wool helps. When I posted that photo on Facebook one reader was upset that the sheep didn't have any shelter.

I flew to Maryland for Thanksgiving this year. Back in Iowa, Caroline cooked a turkey and all the fixings for Bob and Warren (who says she is a better cook than me, and I'm absolutely fine with that).

It would be hard to beat my mom in the kitchen. I especially enjoyed the creamed mushrooms, as well as the sugar cookies, orange rolls, and cranberry relish. When I left to fly back to Iowa she was baking fruitcakes. One will arrive by mail soon. I can't wait.

It snowed the day before Thanksgiving. Right before I took this photo there was a clap of thunder.

By the next day, most of the snow had melted. Mom's Christmas cacti are unbelievable.

Dad found this tiny wooden yoke (for a goat?) in a local antique store. I bought it for him as a Christmas present and he hung it over the fireplace.

A second after I took this photo, the white rooster flew up and attacked my head. I screamed and then had a good laugh. The relative who owns the chickens (I will call her "Laura Jensen") wondered about his breed. I put his photo on the Facebook page for Living the Country Life and got hundreds of guesses. He's a crossbreed.

These mushrooms were picked fresh in Oxford, PA, and delivered to Mom's front porch one morning. She made creamed mushrooms and mushroom-pumpkin soup.

Fruitcake production began at 7:00 a.m. Fisher prepared the many pans while Meghan mixed the nuts and fruit. Mom handled the sugar, flour, butter, and eggs. Mom keeps a list on her fridge of who gets each fruitcake. When I called her from Iowa that evening she still had the last batch in the oven.

Close up of the nuts and fruit. The night before, I chopped the dates, figs, pecans, and walnuts.

Raspberry jam and blackberry wine gives the raw dough a purple color.

The final product.

We did our Black Friday shopping at the local estate auction.

I rolled out the refrigerated dough for Mom's thin, crisp sugar cookies, decorated with sprinkles by grandchildren. A tin of these made it to Iowa in my carry-on bag.

We visited a local artist and found this wonderful sculpture on her porch.

My friend Robin came over one night to cook a special mulled cider brew on Mom's stove.